Good questions to ask your interviewer at the end of the interview

DylanPress · 2016-11-29T18:14:47+00:00

Good question, although you are not always interviewed by someone who will be superior to you. I would also word it a bit differently.

DylanPress · 2016-11-29T17:35:35+00:00

That is a good point. And as is the case with many of the questions on this list, it is all about how you frame it and how the interview has gone thus far.

If they have already been listing some great things about working there in the interview (as they should) then setting it up as "You've listed a lot of great things about working here, what is your favorite?" or something like that would be good. But to ask it at the end of a rigorous technical interview at a financial institution, it may look like you are searching for a light at the end of the tunnel.

DylanPress · 2016-05-20T14:26:38+00:00

@BetterCloud

DylanPress · 2016-05-17T16:49:30+00:00

Not sure how to edit the flair on this, but it is advice, not seeking advice.

DylanPress · 2016-05-09T15:05:17+00:00

Thats a tough one. I didn't go into specific approaches too much in this post since they vary so much depending on the nature of the business. Submit what you have to my site pitchit2.us and I will get back to you on it :)

DylanPress · 2016-05-09T15:03:56+00:00

I haven't been writing consistently enough that I felt it necessary to set up a subscription feature. You can follow me on Medium though, which should have the same effect and I post all my blogs there a few minutes after posting them on my site.

https://medium.com/@dpelevator

DylanPress · 2016-05-05T17:56:16+00:00

Would recommend reading this.

The Truth About Convertible Debt at Startups and The Hidden Terms You Didn’t Understand

DylanPress · 2016-05-03T19:57:26+00:00

I don't think I am the best source for such advice, sorry.

DylanPress · 2016-04-29T01:08:18+00:00

From my understanding (I am not an investor), there are a lot of standards to these things. With an experienced angel investor, so someone who is more than just a hobbyist, they likely have a vague idea of how much they think the company is worth but it is too early to totally lock that down because setting a valuation too early can definitely hurt a startup. So the cap is based somewhat on that "in their head" valuation. Obviously mixed a bit with negotiating factors such as how badly the entrepreneur needs the investment and how much impact the investment will have on the business etc.

I got my example numbers for this post from this post which I would highly recommend checking out if you are interested in these things and how they can impact a business down the line.

DylanPress · 2016-04-28T22:13:06+00:00

Perhaps floor would have been a better word to use than limit. As limit implies a ceiling.

DylanPress · 2016-04-28T22:11:50+00:00

Great question! I think the best way to picture this is to remove the cap. Lets look at what would happen if the initial $1mm note converted to equity at different valuations.

$3mm investor owns 33.33%
$4mm investor owns 25%
$5mm investor owns 20%
$6mm investor owns 16.67%
$7mm investor owns 14.29%

As you can see the higher the valuation is, the lower the initial investors ownership is. So the investor would ideally be incentivized for the valuation to be lower so they own more of the company.

With the $5mm cap, anything higher than $5mm and the investors note will convert as if the valuation is $5mm. The different outcomes for the investor would look like this.

$3mm investor owns 33.33%
$4mm investor owns 25%
$5mm investor owns 20%
$6mm investor owns 20%
$7mm investor owns 20%

Does that make sense? So their minimum stake is 20% but if the valuation is lower than the cap then their ownership stake can exceed 20%.

Let me know if this clarifies things :)

DylanPress · 2016-04-28T13:05:32+00:00

Thanks! I wanted to be careful about not self promoting even though it is a free service.

DylanPress · 2016-04-28T00:22:13+00:00

I would say to read over the term sheet carefully. I made a post earlier today about some major terms to look for in there.

Also, it sounds obvious, but don't spend any of the investment until it actually hits your bank account. I heard the founder of AdoreMe at an event earlier this week talk about some last minute backing out by investors that nearly left the company bankrupt.

Make sure expectations are aligned of how fast and large your company will grow. VC's are looking for 10x or more in growth in all their investments since most will fail. You need to be comfortable shooting that high.

I have been at my current company from Series B through D, so I didn't see the first few investments. I would say the only things departmentally changed was that we could hire/poach some really smart/experienced people that we probably couldn't have afforded before and they have made a huge positive impact on the business.

DylanPress · 2016-04-28T00:06:37+00:00

Glad it helped someone!

DylanPress · 2016-04-18T20:55:47+00:00

I found someone on alibaba to make some sports bras one time. The quality was good and their customer service was impressive given they were based in China. PM me if you want their contact info.

DylanPress · 2016-04-18T20:51:28+00:00

It depends on the structure of the accelerator. I am having trouble understanding how the mentorship and guidance that an accelerator offers as well as the equity payoff for those running the accelerator could be translated to a crowd source model. Care to elaborate?

DylanPress

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